"came from materials in the Oort cloud, associated with comets, and not from the materials that formed Saturn in earlier times. Studies based on Enceladus's tidal-based geologic activity and the lack of evidence of extensive past resonances in Tethys, Dione, and Rhea's orbits suggest that the moons inward of Titan may be only 100 million years old. Moons of Saturn The moons of Saturn are numerous and diverse, ranging from tiny moonlets less than 1 kilometer across to the enormous Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury. Saturn has 62 moons with confirmed orbits, 53 of which have names"
"agencies. These missions consist of flybys in 1979 by ""Pioneer 11"", in 1980 by ""Voyager 1"", in 1982 by ""Voyager 2"" and an orbital mission by the ""Cassini"" spacecraft, which lasted from 2004 until 2017. Saturn has at least 62 known moons, although the exact number is debatable since Saturn's rings are made up of vast numbers of independently orbiting objects of varying sizes. The largest of the moons is Titan, which holds the distinction of being the only moon in the Solar System with an atmosphere denser and thicker than that of Earth. Titan holds the distinction of being"
"Saturn Rhea is the second-largest moon of Saturn. Titan is the largest moon of Saturn. Its substantial atmosphere makes it the most Earth-like moon in the Solar System and hence a popular science fiction setting. Hyperion is the largest irregularly-shaped moon of Saturn, orbiting between Titan and Iapetus. Iapetus is a large moon orbiting further from Saturn than any of its other large satellites. Half of its surface is very bright while the other half is extremely dark. Investigations since 2004 have also noted its irregular shape, immense impact basins, and a high mountainous ridge on the equator. Phoebe is"
"Titan (moon) Titan is the largest moon of Saturn. It is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object in space, other than Earth, where clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid have been found. Titan is the sixth gravitationally rounded moon from Saturn. Frequently described as a planet-like moon, Titan is 50% larger than Earth's moon and 80% more massive. It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System after Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and is larger than the smallest planet, Mercury, but only 40% as massive. Discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer"
"Enceladus Enceladus (; ) is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It is about in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most reflective bodies of the Solar System. Consequently, its surface temperature at noon only reaches , far colder than a light-absorbing body would be. Despite its small size, Enceladus has a wide range of surface features, ranging from old, heavily cratered regions to young, tectonically deformed terrains. Enceladus was discovered on August 28, 1789, by William Herschel, but little was known about"
"Titania (moon) Titania is the largest of the moons of Uranus and the eighth largest moon in the Solar System at a diameter of . Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Titania is named after the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"". Its orbit lies inside Uranus's magnetosphere. Titania consists of approximately equal amounts of ice and rock, and is probably differentiated into a rocky core and an icy mantle. A layer of liquid water may be present at the core–mantle boundary. The surface of Titania, which is relatively dark and slightly red in color, appears"
"though the presence of ammonia on Titan would cause chemical reactions to proceed more slowly. Titan (moon) Titan is the largest moon of Saturn. It is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object in space, other than Earth, where clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid have been found. Titan is the sixth gravitationally rounded moon from Saturn. Frequently described as a planet-like moon, Titan is 50% larger than Earth's moon and 80% more massive. It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System after Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and is larger than the"
"Iapetus (moon) Iapetus (; ), or occasionally Japetus , is the third-largest natural satellite of Saturn, eleventh-largest in the Solar System, and the largest body in the Solar System known not to be in hydrostatic equilibrium. Iapetus is best known for its dramatic ""two-tone"" coloration. Discoveries by the ""Cassini"" mission in 2007 revealed several other unusual features, such as a massive equatorial ridge running three-quarters of the way around the moon. Iapetus was discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, an Italian astronomer, in October 1671. He had discovered it on the western side of Saturn and tried viewing it on the"
"thin that from a position on Saturn's equator, they would be almost invisible. However, from anywhere else on the planet, they could be seen as a spectacular arc stretching across half the celestial hemisphere. Saturn's moons would not look particularly impressive in its sky, as most are fairly small, and the largest are a long way from the planet. Even Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, appears only half the size of Earth's moon, and only grows as bright as −7. In fact, Titan is the dimmest of Saturn's large moons due to its great distance and low albedo; Mimas,"
"Jingpo Lacus Jingpo Lacus is a lake in the north polar region of Titan, the planet Saturn's largest moon. It and similarly sized Ontario Lacus are the largest known bodies of liquid on Titan after the three maria (Kraken Mare, Ligeia Mare and Punga Mare). It is composed of liquid hydrocarbons (mainly methane and ethane). It is west of Kraken Mare at 73° N, 336° W, roughly 240 km (150 mi) long, similar to the length of Lake Onega on Earth. Its namesake is Jingpo Lake, a scenic lake in China. On 8 July 2009, ""Cassini""'s Visual and Infrared Mapping"
"Erebor Mons Erebor Mons is a mountain on Titan, the largest moon of the planet Saturn. It is located near Titan's equator, between 4-5° south and 35-36° west, centered on , in the western part of Quivira region. It is 40 km across, more than 1 km high and has lobate flow features to its north and east. It is probably a cryovolcano. Erebor Mons is situated about 470 km to the north-northeast of a larger cryovolcanic construct, Doom Mons. Erebor Mons is one of the highest known mountains of Titan, but it is not readily discernible on radar or"
"is Phoebe, the largest of the outer moons. Although Phoebe's composition is closer to that of the bright hemisphere of Iapetus than the dark one, dust from Phoebe would only be needed to establish a contrast in albedo, and presumably would have been largely obscured by later sublimation. The discovery of a tenuous disk of material in the plane of and just inside Phoebe's orbit was announced on 6 October 2009, supporting the model. The disk extends from 128 to 207 times the radius of Saturn, while Phoebe orbits at an average distance of 215 Saturn radii. It was detected"
"less than half that of Triton (the seventh-largest moon in the Solar System) alone. The largest of the satellites, Titania, has a radius of 788.9 km, or less than half that of the Moon, but slightly more than that of Rhea, the second-largest moon of Saturn, making Titania the eighth-largest moon in the Solar System. Uranus is about 10,000 times more massive than its moons. As of 2016, Uranus is known to have 13 inner moons. Their orbits lie inside that of Miranda. All inner moons are intimately connected to the rings of Uranus, which probably resulted from the fragmentation"
"the expansion continued, but some of the angular moment was transferred to Europa as the resonance caused its orbit to expand as well; the process continued until Europa encountered the 2:1 resonance with Ganymede. Eventually the drift rates of conjunctions between all three moons were synchronized and locked in the Laplace resonance. Ganymede is the largest and most massive moon in the Solar System. Its diameter of 5,268 km is 0.41 times that of Earth, 0.77 times that of Mars, 1.02 times that of Saturn's Titan (the second-largest moon), 1.08 times Mercury's, 1.09 times Callisto's, 1.45 times Io's and 1.51"
"convention that Titanean mountains are named after mountains in Tolkien's work. The name was formally announced on November 13, 2012. Mithrim Montes The Mithrim Montes are a range of mountains on Titan, the largest moon of the planet Saturn. The range is located near Titan's equator, between 1-3° south and 126-8° west and consists of three parallel ridges that are oriented east-west, spaced about 25 km apart. They are located within the region Xanadu. The highest peak is about high and is located on the southernmost of the ridges; it is the highest known peak on Titan. The Mithrim Montes"
"orbit, Iapetus is the only large moon from which the rings of Saturn would be clearly visible; from the other inner moons, the rings would be edge-on and difficult to see. From Iapetus, Saturn would appear to be 1°56' in diameter (four times the size of the Moon viewed from Earth). The low density of Iapetus indicates that it is mostly composed of ice, with only a small (~20%) amount of rocky materials. Unlike most of the large moons, its overall shape is neither spherical nor ellipsoid, but has a bulging waistline and squashed poles; also, its unique equatorial ridge"
"a retrograde orbiting moon in the outer Saturn system. It is the largest of the Saturnian irregular moons. Saturn's moons in fiction Several of Saturn's natural satellites have figured prominently in works of science fiction. Some works of fiction refer to several of Saturn's moons, or to no specific moon. Janus is a small inner moon of Saturn notable for having an orbit nearly identical to the orbit of the moon Epimetheus; the two swap orbital positions every four years. Mimas is a small, icy moon orbiting close to Saturn, notable for being scarred by Herschel crater, whose diameter is"
"Rhea (moon) Rhea ( ; ) is the second-largest moon of Saturn and the ninth-largest moon in the Solar System. It is the second smallest body in the Solar System for which precise measurements have confirmed a shape consistent with hydrostatic equilibrium, after dwarf planet Ceres. It was discovered in 1672 by Giovanni Domenico Cassini. Rhea was discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini on 23 December 1672. It was the second moon of Saturn that Cassini discovered, and the third moon discovered around Saturn overall. Rhea is named after the Titan Rhea of Greek mythology, the ""mother of the gods"". It"
"Callisto (moon) </math>.</ref> Callisto (Jupiter IV) is the second-largest moon of Jupiter, after Ganymede. It is the third-largest moon in the Solar System after Ganymede and Saturn's largest moon Titan, and the largest object in the Solar System not to be properly differentiated. Callisto was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei. At in diameter, Callisto has about 99% the diameter of the planet Mercury but only about a third of its mass. It is the fourth Galilean moon of Jupiter by distance, with an orbital radius of about . It is not in an orbital resonance like the three other"
"was measured by ""Cassini"" to about 5.5 hours. This is the fastest known rotation of all of Saturn's moons. It was named in April 2007 after Hati, a giant wolf from Norse mythology, son of Fenrisúlfr and twin brother of Sköll. Hati (moon) Hati ( ) or Saturn XLIII (provisional designation S/2004 S 14) is a natural satellite of Saturn. Its discovery was announced by Scott S. Sheppard, David C. Jewitt, Jan Kleyna, and Brian G. Marsden on 4 May 2005, from observations taken between 12 December 2004 and 11 March 2005. Hati is about 6 kilometers in diameter, and"
"Russian billionaire Yuri Milner expressed interest in funding a ""low-cost, privately funded mission to Enceladus which can be launched relatively soon."" Speaking at the New Space Age conference in Seattle, Milner described Enceladus as ""the most promising candidate” for extraterrestrial life in the solar system. In September 2018, NASA and the Breakthrough Starshot Foundation, founded by Milner and tasked with the mission design, signed an agreement about cooperation and consulting in the missions initial concept phase. Enceladus Enceladus (; ) is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It is about in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon,"
"group are four prograde outer moons that are similar enough in their distance from the planet (207–302 radii of Saturn), their orbital inclination (35–40°) and their color that they can be considered a group. They are Albiorix, Bebhionn, Erriapus, and Tarvos. Tarvos, as of 2009, is the most distant of Saturn's moons with a prograde orbit. The largest among these moons is Albiorix with an estimated size of about 32 km. The Norse (or Phoebe) group consists of 29 retrograde outer moons. They are Aegir, Bergelmir, Bestla, Farbauti, Fenrir, Fornjot, Greip, Hati, Hyrrokkin, Jarnsaxa, Kari, Loge, Mundilfari, Narvi, Phoebe, Skathi,"
"view of the rings would be available, although the greater distance would make Saturn appear smaller in the sky; from Phoebe, the largest of Saturn's irregular moons, Saturn would appear only as big as the full Moon does from Earth. The play of distance and angle is quite sensitive to the values used, but calculations show the best view of the rings would be achieved from the inner moon Mimas, which lies a full 1.5° off Saturn's equatorial plane ""and"" is fairly near the rings. At their widest opening, when Mimas is at its maximum distance from Saturn's equatorial plane,"
"Galilean moons The Galilean moons are the four largest moons of Jupiter—Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. They were first seen by Galileo Galilei in January 1610, and recognized by him as satellites of Jupiter in March 1610. They were the first objects found to orbit another planet. Their names derive from the lovers of Zeus. They are among the largest objects in the Solar System with the exception of the Sun and the eight planets, with a radius larger than any of the dwarf planets. Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System, and is even bigger than the"
"giant in Norse mythology. Fornjot (moon) Fornjot ( ), or Saturn XLII (provisional designation S/2004 S 8), is the outermost natural satellite of Saturn. Its discovery was announced by Scott S. Sheppard, David C. Jewitt, Jan Kleyna, and Brian G. Marsden on 4 May 2005 from observations taken between 12 December 2004, and 11 March 2005. It is about 6 kilometres in diameter, and it orbits Saturn at an average distance of 23,609 Mm in 1354 at an inclination of 168° to the ecliptic (160° to Saturn's equator) in a retrograde direction and with an eccentricity of 0.186. Fornjot was"
"of the larger moons of Jupiter (3 of the 4 largest) and of Saturn (6 of the 8 largest) are in mean-motion resonances. In all three satellite systems, moons were likely captured into mean-motion resonances in the past as their orbits shifted due to tidal dissipation (a process by which satellites gain orbital energy at the expense of the primary's rotational energy, affecting inner moons disproportionately). In the Uranian system, however, due to the planet's lesser degree of oblateness, and the larger relative size of its satellites, escape from a mean-motion resonance is much easier. Lower oblateness of the primary"
"Daphnis (moon) Daphnis ( ; ) is an inner satellite of Saturn. It is also known as '; its provisional designation was '. Daphnis is about 8 kilometres in diameter, and orbits the planet in the Keeler Gap within the A ring. The moon was named in 2006 after Daphnis, a shepherd, pipes player, and pastoral poet in Greek mythology; he was descendant of the Titans, after whom the largest moons of Saturn are named. Both Daphnis and Pan, the only other known shepherd moon to orbit within Saturn's main rings, are named for mythological figures associated with shepherds. Before"
"other planets and moons. Two were taken to Mars by the Viking program. In early 2005 the Cassini–Huygens mission delivered a specialized GC-MS instrument aboard the Huygens probe through the atmosphere of Titan, the largest moon of the planet Saturn. This instrument analyzed atmospheric samples along its descent trajectory and was able to vaporize and analyze samples of Titan's frozen, hydrocarbon covered surface once the probe had landed. These measurements compare the abundance of isotope(s) of each particle comparatively to earth's natural abundance. Also on board the Cassini–Huygens spacecraft was an ion and neutral mass spectrometer which had been taking"
"Ganymede (moon) Ganymede (Jupiter III) is the largest and most massive moon of Jupiter and in the Solar System. The ninth largest object in the Solar System, it is the largest without a substantial atmosphere. It has a diameter of and is 8% larger than the planet Mercury, although only 45% as massive. Possessing a metallic core, it has the lowest moment of inertia factor of any solid body in the Solar System and is the only moon known to have a magnetic field. It is the third of the Galilean moons, the first group of objects discovered orbiting another"
"from microscopic to moonlets hundreds of meters across, each in its own orbit around Saturn. Thus a precise number of Saturnian moons cannot be given, because there is no objective boundary between the countless small anonymous objects that form Saturn's ring system and the larger objects that have been named as moons. Over 150 moonlets embedded in the rings have been detected by the disturbance they create in the surrounding ring material, though this is thought to be only a small sample of the total population of such objects. Before the advent of telescopic photography, eight moons of Saturn were"
"Mithrim Montes The Mithrim Montes are a range of mountains on Titan, the largest moon of the planet Saturn. The range is located near Titan's equator, between 1-3° south and 126-8° west and consists of three parallel ridges that are oriented east-west, spaced about 25 km apart. They are located within the region Xanadu. The highest peak is about high and is located on the southernmost of the ridges; it is the highest known peak on Titan. The Mithrim Montes are named after the Mithrim Mountains, a range in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth. This follows a"
"by the ""Cassini"" orbiter. However, its great distance from Saturn makes close observation difficult. ""Cassini"" made one targeted close flyby, at a minimum range of , on September 10, 2007. The monolith featured at the climax of Arthur C. Clarke's 1968 novel is located on Iapetus. Iapetus (moon) Iapetus (; ), or occasionally Japetus , is the third-largest natural satellite of Saturn, eleventh-largest in the Solar System, and the largest body in the Solar System known not to be in hydrostatic equilibrium. Iapetus is best known for its dramatic ""two-tone"" coloration. Discoveries by the ""Cassini"" mission in 2007 revealed several"
"10199 Chariklo 10199 Chariklo ( or ; ; provisional designation ) is the largest confirmed centaur (minor planet of the outer Solar System). It orbits the Sun between Saturn and Uranus, grazing the orbit of Uranus. On 26 March 2014, astronomers announced the discovery of two rings (nicknamed Oiapoque and Chuí) around Chariklo by observing a stellar occultation, making it the first minor planet known to have rings. Chariklo was discovered by James V. Scotti of the Spacewatch program on February 15, 1997. Chariklo is named after the nymph Chariclo (""""), the wife of Chiron and the daughter of Apollo."